Microsoft Surface Tablet to Launch in Japan – Here We Go Again!

Get ready for another bizarre sold-out on release date fiasco – the Microsoft Surface Tablet is apparently heading to Japan. According to new reports posted by the Wall Street Journal this week, Microsoft has confirmed that both versions of the Surface Tablet will hit the Japanese market by the end of the year, though didn’t go so far as to confirm actual release dates.

The move apparently represents part of an ongoing and preplanned global rollout of the Surface RT and Surface Pro Tablets, following their rather shaky arrival in the US.

It is at present widely expected that the Microsoft Surface RT Tablet will be the first to go on sale in Japan and could potentially prove to be primary model of interest for the consumer population. The Surface RT is expected to launch for the same $499 as in the US for the 32GB version, which is likely to attract modest numbers across Japan’s emerging consumer technology market.

Having originally landed in the form of the low-calorie Surface RT Tablet last October, Microsoft’s tablet duo has become quite simply the most debated and scrutinized product launch in the history of the tablet PC market. While the Surface RT was largely panned and being under-functional and underwhelming at best, critics argued that the Surface Pro took things completely OTT and resulted in a price-tag that most would not be able to realistically justify.

Nevertheless, bot the Surface RT and the Surface Pro managed to sell-out in just hours following each release date – something immediately picked up on by the world’s press as a deliberate and rather shameful ploy by Microsoft to drum up further interest in the Surface range.

So, it remains to be seen how the pair gets on in the Japanese market but given the way in which both have yet to really strike any chord with the mainstream in the West, chances are both the Surface Pro and the Surface RT will be in for another rough ride.